By Chris M. Slawecki
It's sometimes easy to overlook percussionists in the pantheon of great jazz players. Percussion players are sometimes regarded as accessories to, and not part of, "the regular band." But in recalling some of my favorite pop and rock, it's the percussion that stand out most of all: The introduction of Steely Dan's "Do It Again," the tribal magic of Peter Gabriel's Games Without Frontiers, the Stones' "Hot Stuff" and "Sympathy For The Devil," Bill Bruford in King Crimson, scorchers like Santana and smoothies like Sade. So it's satisfying to report and reflect on rare solo releases by two of the world's most acclaimed (and musically traveled) percussionists, Mino Cinelu from France and Trilok Gurtu from Bombay, India.
Mino Cinelu is the first solo record from this French-Caribbean percussionist, though he's worked for decades with beacons of jazz and pop. Jazz fans may recognize his credits on Miles Davis' first three funk albums of the 1980s (We Want Miles, Star People and Decoy), and later on Amandla, Pat Metheny's Imaginary Day and Across The Sky, or Weather Report's Sportin' Life and This Is This. Fans of rock and pop know his work from Sting's Nothing Like The Sun and Brand New Day, Michael Franks' Dragonfly Summer and Tori Amos' Boys For Pele, among others.
Except for contributions from bassist Richard Bona (from Cameroon) and American guitarist Mitch Stein, Cinelu composed, programmed, arranged, performed (instrumentally and vocally), and produced this whole shootin' match. It is a very organic and natural-sounding solo debut through which Cinelu's French-Caribbean heritage brightly and warmly shines. The floating melody of "Soon I Will Be Home" and instrumentation of "Moun Madinina" - exotic shifting plates of drum-n-bass (the sound, not the genre) - suggest the best of Sting's solo music, as does Cinelu's vocal in "Madinina." "Petit Prince" whispers a lovely guitar ballad that, coming from a percussion player, sure sounds more like (Pat) Metheny than Mongo (Santamaria). Though you won't even find a piano on Mino Cinelu, Cinelu seems to favor jazz pianists: "Soon I Will Be Home" is dedicated to Kenny Kirkland and "Petit Prince" to Michel Petrucciani.
The cinematic epic "Shibumi Dunes (Silk Road)" serves as centerpiece. Banjo, pounding bass and tom-toms slowly build a purple-blue groan that somehow sounds Native American, ushering in chanted moans that phonetically sound like, "Deeper, deeperÂ…" as the music goes further and further out. Cinelu's use of space here is masterful and worthy of Davis, The Black Prince. "Oncoming Horizons" opens another expanse of global percussion, guitars and vocals, suggesting the Brasilia of the Metheny band with Pedro Aznar (circa First Circle).
The closing "Why Not" is Cinelu's solo percussion tour-de-force as a human jungle drum-n-bass (the sound AND the genre) beatbox. His playing is so rhythmically smooth and tight that he almost sounds like a machine, but it projects warmth that lets you know - or, perhaps more accurately, lets you feel - that this music is being played, not programmed. This is easily the track that pure percussionists will pop for the most.
The first time I saw Trilok Gurtu, he put on one of the most amazing musical performances I've ever seen. He was part of the John McLaughlin trio as the opener on a 1988 bill with Miles Davis' large electric band. The venue was intimate, with a small circular "in the round" stage. The Davis band was SO large and electric (with SO much equipment) that the onstage space allocated to the opening act seemed the size of a small folding table. I forget the bassist. But because he had almost no room onstage, Gurtu played drums and percussion WHILE KNEELING through the entirety of McLaughlin's nearly hour-long set.
Gurtu was born into one of India's most prestigious musical families: His grandfather was a respected sitar player and his mother is one of India's most famous singers of classical music. Gurtu played in the vanguard world/acoustic jazz fusion group Oregon from the mid-1980s into the 1990s, appears on albums by Danny Gottleib, Jan Garbarek, McLaughlin, and Oregon, and has a few other solo albums to his credit. He is the first (and so far only) Indian musician to win a Downbeat Critics' Poll, as Best Percussionist for 1994, '95, '96, and 2000; he was also named Percussionist of the Year in the 1999 Drum Magazine Readers' Poll.
African Fantasy, his first album as a leader in years, paints a brilliantly colored canvas from the common musical ground between India and Africa with brushstrokes from an international summit of musicians which includes his mother (on the playful "You, Remember This"), stylish Benin singer Angelique Kidjo, sitar player Ravi Chary, and Sabine Kabongo of the South African-rooted a capella group Zap Mama.
From its very beginning, African Fantasy plunges into the thick, pungent epicenter of a swirling Indian market, but with Burundi drummers having setup shop in the corner merchants' stall. "African con India" crystallizes Gurtu's synthesis of the two musical spheres. "Dinki Puriya" presents a duet between Gurtu on tabla and Chary on sitar that breathes with the spirit of traditional Indian music, but the rest of this release swirls cultural crosscurrents of styles and sounds that literally span the globe.
The musical connect-the-dots you can play with African Fantasy are amazing. "You, Remember This" weaves African ju-ju like King Sunny Ade, especially in the synchronous, interlocking guitar and percussion ju-ju rhythm that's somehow also straight 4/4 time. "DJ Didgeridoo" is built around that traditional instrument from "down under," but in combination with vague voices embedded in the rhythm track, an insistent synthesizer buzz above and grumbling bass undertow below, it presents a menace strangely like the opening to "The Happiest Days of Our Lives," the first part of Pink Floyd's famous "Another Brick In The Wall Part II" (the "We don't need no education" song).
The progressive rock theme somehow continues. "African Fantasy" opens with synthesizers and guitars that scrape and claw at the atmospherics in a beautiful ancient yet modern melody that suggests "The Sheltering Sky" from King Crimson! Wrapped in a sitar and synthesizer twinkling blanket, "Folded Hands" clasps an oddly-timed middle instrumental section that also suggests Bill Bruford's percussive effect in the Crimson Discipline band.
"Big Brother" busts out American blues tones in its opening - an eye-popping serpentine in unison bass/sitar - and in its taut and tart electric guitar hook, too. As the closing "Big Brother Reprise" features two synthesizers in a duet around sitar, it is apparent that Gurtu has somehow created a meeting of the futurist and the ancient that sounds at home and yet foreign in almost any corner of the globe.
Mino Cinelu and African Fantasy both suggest that it's a great big world - yet a small one, too.
